Pot luck for antibiotics
Medicinal cannabis could aid fight against superbugs, researchers find
QUEENSLAND researchers are studying a component of medicinal cannabis for its potential as a new antibiotic, capable of killing superbugs.
The big hope for scientists at the University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) is that synthetic cannabidiol, or CBD, the main non-psychoactive component of cannabis, could be developed into the first new class of antibiotics for drug-resistant bacteria in more than half a century.
The quest for new antibiotics is seen as crucial by infectious disease experts, with predictions that by 2050, drugresistant infections could result in 10 million deaths a year unless alternate treatments are found.
UQ’s Mark Blaskovich, director of IMB’s Centre for Superbug Solutions, said studies had shown CBD could penetrate and kill drug-resistant bacteria responsible for gonorrhoea and Legionnaires’ disease.
Dr Blaskovich said laboratory experiments had also found CBD effective against methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, better known as golden staph, which frequently caused problems in hospitals.
A trial of a CBD formulation is already under way to determine whether it can kill golden staph bacteria, when applied as a gel inside the nose, to reduce the risk of infection after surgery.
Dr Blaskovich said UQ scientists were working with Botanix Pharmaceuticals on modifying the structure of the compound in the hope they could create oral forms of CBD that would work effectively as antibiotic treatments for drugresistant bacterial diseases, such as gonorrhoea, Legionnaires’ disease and meningitis.
Further work is necessary to discover exactly how CBD kills bacteria. That would potentially allow the scientists to modify CBD into a more potent antibiotic that may be able to be taken orally.
Even if that proves impossible, Dr Blaskovich said CBD applied to the skin held promise for the treatment of infected diabetic ulcers and wounds. But he warned: “We certainly do not recommend that people self-apply CBD oil to treat their own infections. Chances are it’s not going to work.”
“The type of gel or cream that you use to apply it makes a huge difference over whether it works at killing bacteria or not,” he said.
Dr Blaskovich admitted it could take years before new versions of CBD formed the basis of a new class of antibiotics, if at all.